Writing week nine
Transitivity
Who did what to whom?
Embedded Files
Discussion
Discussion
Watch the clip, and place the events from the cartoon below in the correct order:
Happy the crocodile hops around.
The rabbits complain, so Duggee bakes them another cake.
Betty and Norie throw the ball to each other.
When the cakes emerge from the oven, the squirrels give them to the rabbits.
He devours a cake that is sitting in a field.
Language analysis - transitive and intransitive verbs
Language analysis - transitive and intransitive verbs
Some verbs in English are followed by an object, which means that the verb changes the state of the person or thing that comes after it. In sentences such as the boy kicked the ball, zombies killed everyone, and Dave broke the photocopier, the ball, everyone, and the photocopier have all changed somehow, and someone made the change happen. We call these types of verbs, that change the state of an object transitive verbs. because they don't make any sense without objects (e.g. sentences such as the boy kicked, zombies killed and Dave broke are meaningless).
Compare these to verbs that are intransitive, meaning that they don't take an object. In the sentences: the virus spread, everyone died and the photocopier broke the verbs just happen by themselves. Nobody caused them to happen.
Task one
Task one
Look back at the sentences from the discussion task above. Identify the verb(s) in each sentence, and decide if they are transitive or intransitive.
Task two - Identifying agency
Task two - Identifying agency
The following two texts were originally from news reports about an incident that took place in Palestine back in 2002. Read through texts A and B. Which extract would you expect to be from the Israeli source, and which is Palestinian? Identify the language features which helped you to decide.
Activity adapted from Saraceni (2008, p. 169)
Text A
Text A
Israeli forces shoot Palestinian boy
Yesterday afternoon, October 4, Israeli forces shot a Palestinian boy in Jenin. The boy was wounded in his side. Israeli forces prevented access to the boy’s family. He died at the Israeli military roadblock. Mohammad Zeid (16), who was studying with a friend, opened the window of the room where he was studying. Israeli forces, located 50 metres away, ordered him to shut the window. However, one Israeli soldier opened fire and wounded him in the left side. Sameer Zeid (40), who came to rescue the boy, carried him in his car, but Israeli forces stopped the vehicle and prevented the man from crossing and additionally prevented access to an ambulance to rescue the 16 year old boy. Finally, after a long negotiation, Israeli forces allowed an Israeli ambulance to evacuate Mohammad Zeid, who died at 14.30.
Text B
Text B
Palestinians killed, solider wounded
On Friday, Palestinians reported that Muhammad Zeid, 17, was hit by IDF gunfire in the village of Nizlate Zeid, west of Jenin, where security forces were enforcing a curfew. Zeid died at a nearby IDF roadblock shortly afterward. The Palestinians claimed that soldiers prevented Zeid from receiving medical treatment from Palestinian medics, saying that he died while being taken by an Israeli ambulance to hospital in Israel.
The IDF spokesman responded that security forces entered Nizlat Zeid to enforce a curfew and were confronted with groups of Palestinians who threw stones at them. The soldiers fired into the air to disperse the stone throwers and, when they failed to move, fired a second round of shots in which a Palestinian civilian was wounded.
Agency in academic writing
Agency in academic writing
So far we've looked at agency from a critical thinking point of view; sometimes we can infer the stance of an author on a particular topic by whether or not it's clear who did what to whom. However, in academic writing we may also avoid agency for conciseness, or because the agent (the person who did the action) is obvious.
Task three - using the passive voice
Task three - using the passive voice
Rewrite the sentences so that the phrase in bold is the subject. Do not include the agent.
A company launched a new device for measuring the purity of water at a conference in Manchester last year.
Factories abroad make most of the spare parts for the car.
Construction companies build some new urban roads without pavements.
Someone stole four laptops from the offices of the research team.
People can obtain copies of the company's annual report from reception.
Staff printed, packed and distributed the new brochures to all retail outlets.
Activity adapted from Paterson, K. and Wedge, R. (2013), Oxford Grammar for EAP. Oxford: OUP
Task four - using intransitive verbs
Task four - using intransitive verbs
Now, rewrite the same sentences using intransitive rather than transitive verbs. Select the most appropriate verb from the list below (one of them is used more than once). You may need to change the grammar and add prepositions to some verbs.
materialise - wait - emerge - arrive - disappear
A new device for measuring the purity of water __________ at a conference in Manchester last year.
Most of the spare parts for the car __________ .
New urban roads without pavements __________ .
Four laptops __________ from the offices of the research team.
The company's annual report __________ reception.
The new brochures __________ all retail outlets.
The baby tortoise emerged from his shell.
Language analysis - examples from British academic written English
Language analysis - examples from British academic written English
Last term in one of our listening classes we started to look at wordlists, and how they can help us find out more about the most common words in the language we are studying. We're going to return to the Sketch Engine, to look at the most common verbs in academic writing, and how they're used. We're going to look at the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus, which is a collection of nearly 3,000 university essays.
Task five - Exploring verb patterns
Task five - Exploring verb patterns
Open the Sketch Engine, and work in pairs to create a wordlist. In the window that opens, select verbs from the drop down list and click go.
You will see a list of the 50 most common verbs that appear in the essays. Are you surprised by any of them? Which ones would you consider to be 'academic'? (Think back to our lesson last term on prestige lexis.)
Choose one of the verbs that you would like to know more about. You will see three small dots to the right of each verb on the list. Click on them, and then choose one of the functions: Word Sketch, Concordance or Thesaurus. What information do these tools give us about how the verbs are used? How could they help us develop our writing?
Explore some of the other verbs on the list. Which ones are used more transitively, and which are intransitive?
Select verbs and hit go.
Choose a verb and find the dots.
Select one of the tools.
Task Six - review and revise
Task Six - review and revise
Choose a piece of writing you have done recently. This could be the draft of your argumentative essay, the results and discussion exercise from last week's writing class, or any of the practice writing exercises that you've uploaded to Google Classroom. Working in pairs, review the writing and think about:
Is agency always clear in your writing (do you use transitive verbs that always state who did what to whom)?
Could you make your writing more concise by using any of the techniques we've looked at today (selecting an intransitive verb, using the passive voice, or using non-human agents as subjects)?
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